We open the Word of God together today to the book of Ephesians and the fourth chapter. It was the British poet Alexander Pope who in his work An Essay on Criticism penned the famous lines, To err is human, to forgive divine. Indeed, forgiveness is the divine work of God. It is the work of His grace. It is His grace which provides forgiveness to sinners. Nehemiah recognized that when he wrote in the ninth chapter and seventeenth verse, Thou art a God of forgiveness. Aren't you glad for that?
The psalmist joins with that and says, If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. It is the grace of God that enables Him to forgive us of our sins. But it's also the grace of God that enables us to forgive the sins of one another against each other. It is His grace that enables us to give forgiveness and to receive forgiveness. Because the human heart is not naturally prone toward forgiveness.
The fact is there are few worse chains that hold the human soul in bondage than bitterness. It is like a lead weight which pulls the soul downward into the depths of despair and anguish, destroying and extinguishing the vitality of life. There are those people who look to past grievances and offenses with a scowl on their face and with ice in their hearts. There is no one who is in more degrading bondage than such a person.
Giving and receiving forgiveness are essential to being freed from the past so that we can enjoy the future. That's what I want us to think about this morning. I'd like to repeat that. Giving and receiving forgiveness are essential to being freed from the past so that we can enjoy the future. Look with me at the considerations that we have in the outline that you have perhaps from your worship folder. In the first place, let's consider an explanation of what forgiveness is.
There are several words in the Bible, both in the Hebrew and the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament, which are translated forgive or forgiveness. Summarizing them, we might say that they include the ideas of covering over or pardoning to send away something and then to show favor, to give freely. In fact, one Greek word for forgiveness comes from the word grace. It means to give freely to another person.
We need to come to a working definition based upon what those words tell us as well as how the concept is used in the Bible. What is a working definition of forgiveness? As it relates to divine forgiveness, I think we can say it's this, God's lifting of the penalty of his justice. It is God's lifting of the penalty of his justice. Thus he forgives. This is done by God on a legal basis. It's not that God arbitrarily decides to lift justice. He must have a good reason for doing so, a legal reason.
That legal reason is the death of Jesus Christ. For when he died on the cross, he bore the justice of God for all of us who will believe in him. He took upon himself the wrath of God that we deserve so that God's justice has been satisfied and God can now look kindly toward us for Jesus' sake and lift justice from our shoulders. Forgive one another just as God in Christ, says Paul, forgave you.
So God forgives us, he lifts from us the burden of justice in Christ for Christ's sake because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. God can forgive any sin, but he can overlook none. You think about that. God is holy, he cannot overlook any sin, but he can forgive for Jesus' sake any sin that you or I commit. What a gracious God we have. Divine forgiveness is God's lifting of the penalty of justice from us.
Let's think about human forgiveness because that is going to be the thrust of the message today. I would define human forgiveness as releasing another from responsibility for an offense. It is releasing another person from responsibility for an offense. Dr. Gary Chapman, who has ministered in our church as well as in the Lake Johanna Bible Conference defined it this way in a practical sense. It means I will no longer treat you as though you sinned against me. A very practical working definition.
I will no longer treat you as though you sinned against me. It is a choice that I make, a choice that you make to forgive another. And what is the basis for our forgiveness? Just as God forgave us in Christ, so we are to forgive one another. Forgiveness presupposes something. It presupposes that an actual wrong or sin has been committed. It's something beyond a mere irritation or an aggravation. Now the latter two may not help our relationship sinning, but they don't need forgiveness.
Irritation or aggravation may need compromise somewhere. If you have a friend that does something that irritates you, you may have to compromise somewhere in order to continue that friendship. It may mean an accommodation on your part in some way so that the aggravation is reduced, but really forgiveness is not an issue in those kinds of things. But forgiveness becomes an issue when there has been an actual offense, a sin or a wrong that has been done toward another person.
Now between us and God, of course, sin is not theoretical ever. Sin is an actuality. It's a reality that we have to deal with. God is not ever merely irritated or aggravated. That is a human response. God does not get irritated. God does get angry, righteously angry. It is a response of His holiness, His righteousness toward sin. God does become angry, but God doesn't get irritated or aggravated with us. Our sins are crimes against the standards of God's holiness.
That's why we must have forgiveness if we would be right with God. If you'd be here today and you have never received that forgiveness from God because of what Jesus did for you, then there is nothing that is more urgent in your life. Everything in all of the world is more important than having that relationship with God established because of the removal of those sins, those crimes against His holiness.
God is perfectly willing today to forgive you if you will do what you need to do, to acknowledge your sins, repent of them, and believe on the Lord Jesus as your substitute sin bearer. Between us and others, we must be willing and able to differentiate between wrongs and aggravations. I heard about a husband who drove his wife nuts because he chewed his toenails. Now that's pretty disgusting, isn't it? In fact, his wife was right down yucky, and it was aggravating to her, and it irritated her.
I can only imagine how it must have, but it wasn't a matter of a sin or wrong. They had to come to some accommodation in that. I'm not sure what it was. There had to be some compromise there somewhere, but it wasn't necessary for forgiveness because forgiveness is not an issue in aggravations and irritations.
When I sit down at the table to eat, I'm right across from my wife, but when I look past my wife, I see the stove, and I can always tell when a burner has been left on or an oven has been left on. Maybe some of you husbands are the same way. I don't know. That irritates me. Now, it's gotten to be a joke in our family.
I mean, it's not a serious thing that's going to cause a split up in our marriage or anything like that, but when I sit down to a meal and I look up at her and over her head, I see a red light on the oven. The food just starts lumping together in my stomach, and I usually get up and say, just a minute, I'll get it. It's gotten a little bit of a game with us, which she happens to be winning, I think. Maybe you have a friend who talks too much.
You know the kind that has just perpetual motion in this part of the face. Now, if the wrong things are said or if it's gossip, something like that, it can be sin that has to be dealt with. But just talking too much is not a wrong, it's not a sin. It can sure be irritating though. It can be aggravating to live with somebody like that or to work with somebody like that.
We have to be able to differentiate between what are legitimate wrongs and sins and those things that are merely inconveniences or aggravations to us. This becomes an issue when there is an actual wrong or a sin which has occurred. That brings us to our second consideration because we need to examine how forgiveness works when it's appropriate. So let's think about an examination of forgiveness, and to do this, I'd like to turn to a passage in the Gospel of Luke, the 17th chapter.
We have worked our way through this passage on another occasion, but it's appropriate to repeat it today as we think about the importance of forgiveness. Luke chapter 17, we'll begin in verse 3. And Jesus says, be on your guard if your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times saying, I repent, forgive him. I want you to notice here the process of forgiveness involves four steps.
The first step is a sin is committed against you. Now again I say, it's an actual wrong that's been done, and you perceive it. That's step number one. Step number two is the offender is rebuked for his sin. That needs to be done carefully and wisely and in love. It needs to be done at the right time. But the Bible says that you and I have a responsibility to go to someone who has legitimately offended us and to express that to them. It's very important how we do that, isn't it?
Because we can do it in such a way that it only aggravates the whole situation. So we need to do it in the right spirit, the spirit of meekness and gentleness. But we do have the responsibility, and step number two, to go to the brother or sister who has offended us and to express that. And in that sense, rebuke them. That brings us to step number three in the process. It is that the offender repents of his sin. Sometimes we are the offender, sometimes we are the offendee.
It is the offender who needs to repent. How does he do that? Well, there are seven famous words that can be used. They are very difficult words to get out of your mouth. But they are words that are essential to learn and to exercise to employ if we're going to be faithful about this matter of forgiveness. The words are, I was wrong. Will you forgive me? There are seven little words, but it's the way to put together, and it's what they say.
When I become aware that I have legitimately offended another person, then what is appropriate for me to do? Do I say, well, you know, we all make mistakes? Well, you've done it before too. There are all kinds of words that we can throw out that kind of sidestep the issue, but what we need to say at that moment so the process of forgiveness can go on is, I was wrong. Now maybe the other person was wrong in some respects too, that's another issue.
You can care for that, you need to care for it if there was another wrong done. But when you're confronted by having done something wrong, I was wrong. Will you forgive me? Now I'd like for all of you to say those seven words with me, would you? Just out loud, you're not saying to anybody in particular, it shouldn't hurt too much. Let's say them together. I was wrong. Will you forgive me? See how painless that is? Until you've got to say it to somebody else, then it's kind of tough.
Step number three, the offender repents of his sin. Step number four, you extend forgiveness to the offender. You say, I forgive you. And Jesus says that this process really has no limitations. When he says seven times a day, he's using a figure of speech which really means however many times this person will do this to you. And if he then repents of it, then that many times you must forgive. There is no limitation to forgiveness in that situation. That's how forgiveness works ideally.
You know when you talk about something like this, immediately there are questions that fly up to the mind. But what about this? What about that? It's impossible to address all of those. I'd like for us this morning to think about a few of them as we elaborate upon what forgiveness means and how it works. Let's answer some practical questions that arise. One question is this, what if the offender doesn't repent?
I go to the person and in the best spirit that God gives me, I confront that person and he does not see what he's done or refuses to acknowledge what he's done. What am I to do then? Well, I think we have part of an answer to that at least back in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 18. It's a little bit of a different context, but not entirely. It's somewhat of a broader group involved. It's a whole church.
You'll notice in verse 21 a very similar question is asked, this time by Peter, regarding forgiveness. And Jesus essentially repeats what he said in Luke. But I want to look at verse 15 of Matthew 18, and if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. There you see the process is assumed to have been followed and completed.
But if he does not listen to you, if he refuses to acknowledge what he's done, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax gatherer. Now keep in mind that the real context here seems to be that of church discipline. It's a broader group.
But what do we say about the personal aspect of this? Well, I've been personally offended. What happens if my friend, my brother, refuses to acknowledge what he's done to me? Well, in that case, it may be appropriate to bring someone else who can try to help the other person see what he's done. But the fact is that if there is a continued unwillingness or failure to admit what has happened, then it causes a breakdown of fellowship.
It means that I'm not able any longer to fellowship as I once did with that person. Now I want to hasten to say that I must not hold a grudge against that person. I must not allow bitterness to become an issue in my own soul because of his unwillingness to admit what he's done wrong. But as far as the personal offense is concerned, I must maintain an eager willingness to forgive just as soon as that person sees what he's done. Now remember, we're talking about a legitimate wrong.
If at first he is unwilling to admit it, rather than allowing bitterness to encompass my soul, I am to have an eager willingness always to forgive as soon as he repents. But as far as the moral principle is concerned, the fact is that I cannot forgive until there is an acknowledgement and repentance of what has happened. You see, personally, I have to be ready, eager, willing of heart to forgive instantly.
But if there is no repentance on his part, then as far as the moral principle is concerned, I cannot forgive him until there is acknowledgement and repentance. What if the offender is not reachable? That's another question that comes up. Maybe you don't know where the person even lives that has offended you. Perhaps the individual has died. What do you do in a case like that?
I believe the best answer is that in cases where the person who has offended is unreachable, you simply commit to God the offense and claim his justice on it. Say, Lord, I commit my claims to you. You deal with it as only you can. And then I must freely release all of that situation into God's hands because I can't do anything about it. I can't follow the process of forgiveness. I don't know where the other person is.
I've had the experience of saying to God, now God, you know, this happened and I don't know where this person is. I haven't seen him for years. If you want me to straighten it out, then you have to get a hold of me. Be careful. That's happened to me before. And then I had to keep my word. Years since the last contact and all of a sudden, well, hi, how are you? Oh, hi, surprised to hear from you. Then we had to deal with it.
But when you don't know where the person is, commit to God, to his sovereign justice, and then just release the whole thing to the Lord. That'll free you. Then we come to another question that we have to honestly face, and that is, what if I'm the offender and the other person is unaware of my wrong? What do I do in a case like that? Where I know I've done something wrong against another person. I haven't just irritated them.
I haven't just aggravated them, but I've actually sinned against another person and he's not aware of it. She's not aware of it. What am I to do in a case like that? Well, the fact is that there is no conclusive answer for every case. We have to realize that there are some situations where to go to the other party may only create more problems.
For example, if you've had evil thoughts about another person and you've sinned against them in that sense, and the other person is totally unaware of it, it is not proper to go to the other person and say, I need to acknowledge to you and ask your forgiveness for evil thoughts I've had about you, because that only creates more problems. What's going to happen in the mind of the other person? Wonder what he's been thinking.
The best thing to do in a case like that is simply to acknowledge to God the evil thoughts and claim his forgiveness. On the other hand, it may be that as an employee, you have done something wrong against your employer. Let's say, for example, you've taken something from work that wasn't yours. What do you do in a case like that? Well, the easiest thing to do would be to say, God, I acknowledge it and claim his forgiveness. But I think we have to go a step beyond that in a case like this.
And we need to go to the employer and say, this is what happened. And I ask your forgiveness for it, and I'm willing to do whatever I can do to make it right with you. Very rarely does that ever backfire. What it usually does is to give the employer greater confidence in your integrity. I heard recently about a man who wrote to the IRS send in a check. Have you heard this story?
And with the check, he sent a note that said, in essence, my conscience has been bothering me because I've underpaid my taxes. Please accept this check. Now, at the bottom it said, PS, if my conscience keeps bothering me, I'll send you the rest. That's not the way it works. That's not the way it works.
If the other person is unaware that I've done something wrong, we need to carefully evaluate that and you may want to get the counsel of a trusted, mature Christian friend to help you wade through some of the issues. None of us can be perfectly objective about our own lives. Another question arises, didn't Jesus freely forgive on the cross without any conditions attached to it? I mean, you're saying in the process of forgiveness that before he can forgive, there has to be repentance.
And yet Jesus on the cross said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. And it appears to be an unconditional forgiveness. Well, in fact, Jesus did speak those words from the cross. But another fact is that God did extend no personal forgiveness for that offense until there was personal repentance in Acts chapter two. Though the Lord Jesus spoke those words from the cross, there was no forgiveness extended until there was repentance.
Acts chapter two, where Peter preached to the crowds, including some of those who had had a hand in the crucifixion. And he lays that on them and commands them to repent that they might receive the forgiveness of sins. Someone asked, what if I'm not willing to forgive? Occasionally, there are people who are that way.
It may be that the offense has been so deep and the hurt has been so painful that they have trouble extending forgiveness, even when it's asked for, even when there is repentance on the part of the person who's done the wrong. What if I'm unwilling to forgive? Will God still forgive me? Well, let's look at the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter six. This is in the context of the familiar Lord's Prayer, as we call it.
You recall well this phrase, don't you, as recorded here in Matthew 6-12, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Look again in verse 14, for if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. What if I'm not willing to forgive? Will God forgive me? The answer is no, He will not.
This does not mean that willingness to forgive becomes a condition for divine forgiveness, so much as it means that an unforgiving attitude evinces one's own lack of genuine repentance before God. If I am unwilling to forgive another person, what that's really saying, what that's really testifying to, is that I myself have not genuinely repented of my own sinfulness before God. George Herbert said, he who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.
Let me repeat that. He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass. Someone says, I do want to forgive, but my problem is I can't seem to forget. Of course you can't forget, because your mind brings back the memories of the offense and also the feelings that accompanied that offense. Now why is that? Is it that you haven't really forgiven because you haven't forgotten?
No. The fact is that you are human, and your mind brings those things back to your memory because you are human, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you fail to forgive. What do you do in a case where you want to forgive, you've extended forgiveness, but the memories are still with you? What do you do in a case like that? In the first place, take the feelings that you have to God.
If you still have feelings toward the other person, even though the whole process of forgiveness has been worked through, there are still feelings that you have. What you need to do is take those feelings to God. Do not take them to the other person. Take them to God. And then, as an act of faith on your part, even though you may still struggle with those feelings, begin treating the other person as one who is forgiven.
Even if you can't forget what happened, begin treating the other person as one who has been forgiven. As Gary Chapman said, I choose to treat you as though you have not sinned against me. And if you will take that action, you will find that eventually your feelings will catch up with it, even though the offense may never be erased from your memory because God has given you a mind that remembers everything that happens to you, at least in the subconscious.
So you're struggling with finding forgiveness from God for some offense. And you wonder, will God forgive me for that terrible thing that I did? I want to repeat what I said earlier. Christ can forgive any sin. He can overlook none. He can forgive you. As it says in Colossians 1, 14, in whom, in Christ, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. In the next chapter of that same book, Paul goes on to talk about the forgiveness of all of our trespasses and our sins.
If today you are wondering, as you sit there, can God, will God forgive me for, and then you fill in the blank, I want you to know that for Jesus' sake, your faith being placed in him, he will forgive you. And he will lift from you the penalty of justice that has been on your shoulders. He will carry it away. He will pardon you. He will. That is the kind of God that he is.
It may be that you have confessed your sin to God, you've claimed his forgiveness, but you have trouble feeling that God has forgiven you. You don't feel forgiven. That is often an issue. Let me tell you about an old seaman, 80 years of age, by the name of Denny Malone. His minister came to call on him, and as they chatted, Denny said to his pastor that he had been trying to get God to forgive him for something in his life for six years. And he said, quote, but he won't, close quote.
That is, he won't forgive me. His pastor looked at him and said, well, Denny, have you repented? He shook his head yes. He says, Denny, have you trusted Christ? He said yes. The pastor said, then you found him, and you found forgiveness. And Denny shook his head and said, I never feel that forgiveness in my heart.
And so the minister took his Bible and opened it to several passages dealing with forgiveness, including 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. After reading that verse, he said, Denny, said, Denny, when you give your word, do you keep it? And the old seaman said, well, sure I do. Doesn't a gentleman always keep his word? The pastor looked at him and said, but Denny, don't you think God is a gentleman?
And all of a sudden the light shone on Denny's face. And he said, what a fool I've been up till now. He said, I know I am forgiven and I feel it. My friend, God is a gentleman. He keeps his word. He is faithful and he is just in forgiving you when you bring your sin to him. The act of forgiveness seems hard for us, especially when someone has deeply wronged us. How do we get the power? How do we get the ability to forgive someone who has deeply offended us?
Someone put it this way, how can one gain a forgiving heart? Only by going to the cross and there seeing how much our Lord has forgiven us and at what a cost. Then we shall see that the utmost we are called upon to forgive compared with what we have been forgiven is a very little thing. Are you struggling today with forgiveness of another person? It may be that that person has come to you and asked for forgiveness and you have not been willing to forgive to this point. That is wrong.
It may be that you are at the very beginning of the process and you need to go to someone and lovingly and in a timely way confront them and say, here is what happened and here is how I feel about it. Forgiveness of another person, whether it is giving forgiveness or receiving forgiveness, forgiveness of another is an act of grace that reflects the grace of God in our own lives. Be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Let us pray.
I would like for us to take a few moments to pray and maybe you would like to slip to your knees where you are. We do that occasionally in our prayer times. If you can physically and if you desire to, if you have that mind or spirit at this moment, feel free to slip out of your seat and to your knees right there beside your chair as we talk to the Lord together. Is there some issue between you and the Lord? Do you see that the penalty of justice was carried out upon Jesus?
Will you acknowledge your sin and repent of it, change your mind about it, and bring it to Him confessing it is sin and at the same time have the attitude of faith in receiving Jesus and receiving God's forgiveness? Oh, what joy to hear His words, you are forgiven and to feel it, to know it. Perhaps the issue of forgiveness is lateral. It's between you and someone else. Maybe you have been offended, perhaps you have offended. Your project for this message is to deal with that matter.
And I'd like for you in response to what God has said through His word today to all of us to commit yourself right where you're seated to following through. If you've been offended, follow the steps we've talked about. If you have offended and if it's appropriate for you to go to that other person, then you need to say you'll do that and say it to the Lord. Giving and forgiving and giving forgiveness are essential to putting our past behind us and going on in our walk with God.
Father, I pray that in the quietness of this time, you will graciously impose upon our hearts those steps that we need to follow so that we will be in a place of obedience. Oh, may none of us walk away from the word today under bondage. Lord, liberate us so that we can give or receive forgiveness. In Jesus' name, amen.